January 11, 2012

A 2010 incident that pitted police against police is now the subject of a lawsuit in which an Allegheny County officer said that Springdale Borough officers roughed him up, baselessly charged him and lied about it all.

The complaint, filed today in U.S. District Court by county Officer Ray Hrabos, said that Springdale Officer Mark Thom pulled a gun on him and pushed him into a snow bank during a brief dispute over a blocked street. Another Springdale officer later filed charges against Officer Hrabos, most of which were dismissed at the district judge level. The last charge -- disorderly conduct -- was thrown out and mocked by a judge on appeal.

"If this can happen to Officer Hrabos, then who among us is safe from police officers who are willing to lie?" asked attorney Timothy P. O'Brien, who is representing the officer. "Any citizen can be in the same context as Officer Hrabos, where two or three police officers or public officials can fabricate charges if they're willing to state something that wasn't true."

Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Robert Gallo dismissed the disorderly conduct charge on appeal, telling both sides the matter "should have been settled that night. ... This is insane to come down here on this case. Just insane to even bring it here, this far."

Officer Hrabos said he was not worried about being ostracized for suing other officers. "Wrong is wrong, and this needs to be righted," he said.

The Jordan Miles case is about the same thing: integrity of the official version, a citizen's rights, and the (public servant vs military) police orientation.

Increasingly, people are being mistreated by police in the same shameful way that blacks have been mistreated for a long time. Now they're even treating cops like they mistreat black people. I've said it before; in today's environment, increasingly we are all black Palestinians, and maybe we're going to discover what all that noise was about.